Like I told in my previous post, Haapamäki used to be a strong railway village. Here’s a look at the station area.
The white building to the left is the former station restaurant, the yellow building the former station. Back then there were no restaurant cars, so trains would stop for long times and the passengers would disembark and eat. That’s why all major stations have station restaurants.
There are still daily services to two directions from here, but what the station really transports is wood.
But then there’s this funny attraction.
Haapamäki Steam Locomotive Park was opened back in 1988. It has an extensive collection of old steam locomotives obtained from the national railway company when they have been phased out. There’s also a hostel and it’s even possible to sleep in old train cars.
None of the locomotives actually function any more. They’re just externally preserved.
It sure must have been quite a job to learn how to drive these.
So this is what the driver of a steam locomotive saw. No wonder there were accidents.
Here are some of the cars, which can be rented for a night or two.
And then there’s a collection of different kinds of steam locomotives. Don’t ask me, what they are. Although I am a bit of a railroad nerd myself, I really don’t like the steam era.
Small details reveal, that this is a different type from the previous one although they look a lot like each other.
And this was the last thing that the poor crew of the Diesel engine saw before the Kuurila rail accident happened. And I mean it. That is the very same locomotive involved in the deadliest peace time train crash I finland. The very same accident, for which they made the memorial, which I visited. It was repaired and returned to service before ending up here.
There are also cars displaying the conditions in which Karelians were evicted, when the territory was ceded to the Soviet Union at the end of World War II.
Looks pretty much like things you could find in an abandoned home.
There were some Soviet locomotives displayed at the back. The signs tell, what this is all about.
No idea what that says.
I don know some letters from the Cyrillic alphabet. That one states ‘Turbo Generator’. Wonder what it has done.
There was even a model of a vintage Finnish train from the 1950’s or 1960’s to ride.
So much for the locomotive park. But behind it there was something, which interested me a lot more.